Judge Overturns Georgia’s “Plainly Unconstitutional” Six-Week Abortion Ban

A judge in Georgia on Tuesday overturned the state’s ban on abortions after six weeks, a major win for women and gender minorities.

Georgia had passed a law in 2019 banning abortion as soon as a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which is as early as six weeks—before many people even know they are pregnant—but the legislation only took effect after the Supreme Court rolled back the nationwide right to the procedure in June.

A group of doctors and advocacy groups sued Georgia in July, seeking to strike down the law. Judge Robert McBurney sided with them Tuesday, ruling that the six-week ban “did not become the law of Georgia when it was enacted and it is not the law of Georgia now.”

Not only are two sections of the law “plainly unconstitutional,” but “there is no legal basis” for the statewide ban at all, he said in his ruling.

A spokesperson for the Georgia attorney general told the AP that they plan to appeal the decision.

The ruling is a huge win for people in Georgia, where Republican Brian Kemp was just reelected governor. Kemp had refused to say during a debate against Stacey Abrams whether he would sign more abortion restrictions into law if reelected.

Abrams had slammed his nonanswer, warning that “women are in danger” under this governor.

Her accusation was backed up by health professionals, who warned in a study that if abortion is banned in Georgia, maternal mortality will increase 29 percent. If the procedure is banned nationwide, then maternal mortality will rise 24 percent overall.

Maternal mortality among Black people nationwide will skyrocket 39 percent.

The United States already has the highest maternal mortality rate among developed nations, and Georgia has the second-highest rate in the country, of 48.4 deaths out of 100,000 births, according to the World Population Review.

“I guess today, we are all ‘election deniers,’” tweeted right-wing commentator Steven Crowder Tuesday morning. Crowder is among those stirring conspiracy about Kari Lake’s loss to Katie Hobbs in Arizona’s gubernatorial race. “DO NOT CONCEDE,” Crowder insisted.

Before the election, Crowder suggested a peaceful transfer of power was overrated. And after the election, Crowder switched to peddling conspiracy theories to over 80,000 Rumble viewers on his program Louder With Crowder.

One of these theories involved polling locations in Maricopa County, where ballot printers were not producing ink dark enough to be read by tabulators. But in reality, the county’s election officials—largely Republicans—had numerous solutions in place so all votes could be soundly counted.

Crowder and his panel also couldn’t believe that longtime Arizona Republican and incumbent Treasurer Kimberly Yee won more votes than inflammatory John McCain–slamming Kari Lake. The panel almost approached some self-awareness on that notion.

“We’re spending a lot of our time right now thinking, ‘Did we get cheated, did we really lose?’” panelist Gerald Morgan Jr. said. “I’m spending most of my time on this instead of going, ‘OK, well hey, we lost, why did we lose? Was it because Kari Lake took a giant steaming dump on John McCain and maybe she played better nationally than she played in Arizona?’ OK, maybe. I highly doubt it.”

Crowder and company have not been alone in sowing distrust in Kari Lake’s lost election. Former President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that “they just took the election away from Kari Lake.”

Right-wing commentator Todd Starnes echoed Crowder’s call:

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell alleged “computer manipulation:”

The list goes on. These voices all fall in line behind Lake herself, who has spent a good majority of her campaign sowing conspiracy and distrust in elections (as if not only trying to curry favor with Trump but to prepare for her own loss the whole time).

After losing, Lake took to Twitter, showing she had no intention of conceding for the time being:

It’s not shocking that Lake, whose campaign has largely been about denying truth, has yet to concede. But nearly every other big-ticket election denialist who has run and lost thus far has conceded.

Online commentators may try to keep Lake’s false hope alive, but it won’t be enough. Congressional Republicans now are largely occupied with picking new leadership and navigating a dangerously slim House majority. They, just like most of the country and like Arizona voters, are moving on from Lake—whether right-wing commentators believe it or not.

Arizona Representative Andy Biggs intends to challenge Kevin McCarthy for speaker of the house.

The far-right lawmaker announced his plan Monday night on Newsmax, as Republicans creep ever closer to controlling the House of Representatives.

Biggs was elected to Congress in 2016, when he campaigned on the goal of advancing then-President Donald Trump’s political agenda. He is a former chair of the House Freedom Caucus, a group of the most conservative politicians on the Hill.

Biggs has been subpoenaed by the committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol, but he has refused to cooperate. He has also made cruel jokes about the brutal attack on current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband.

“We’re going to show Nancy Pelosi the door very shortly,” he said during an election night event. “Don’t let it hit you on the backside, Nancy. She’s losing the gavel but finding the hammer.”

McCarthy, the House minority leader, has made no secret of his ambitions to move up in the chamber. Despite the distinct lack of the promised “red wave” on election night, McCarthy was already campaigning to be speaker of the House.

But his party is clearly not unified behind him. Dozens of conservative leaders on Monday penned a letter calling for a delay in the House leadership vote until next month.

And although far-right Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has urged her colleagues to back McCarthy, Biggs is not the only challenger he will face. Representative Steve Scalise is also running to be majority leader. Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz has said he backs Jim Jordan for House speaker, and Virginia Representative Bob Good also spoke out against McCarthy.

McCarthy seems to be getting desperate. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that the minority leader’s team had made several calls to Texas Democratic Representative Henry Cuellar asking him to switch parties, giving McCarthy an extra vote.

Cuellar turned them down, the Journal said, citing anonymous sources familiar with the calls.

It looks like the potshots Kari Lake took on the campaign trail are coming back to bite her.

People including Representative Liz Cheney and Meghan McCain, both of whom Lake insulted while running for Arizona governor, celebrated the MAGA Republican’s loss Tuesday.

On the campaign trail, Lake had embraced conspiracy theories and bashed both Cheney and McCain’s father, John McCain. When Cheney released an attack ad against Lake, the former Phoenix news anchor mockingly thanked her for the “anti-endorsement.”

Lake had also called late Arizona Senator John McCain a “loser” and boasted after winning the primary that she and her supporters “drove a stake through the heart of the McCain machine.” At one of her final rallies before Election Day, she said if there were any McCain supporters present, they should “get the hell out.”

And then she lost Monday night to Democrat Katie Hobbs.

“Beautiful morning to all of you,” Meghan McCain tweeted Tuesday, sharing a link to a National Review article titled “McCain Republicans Vote, Too.”

She also posted a photo of her father and Lake the night before.

Cheney retweeted Lake’s thank you statement and said, “You’re welcome.”

Although the gubernatorial race had come down to the wire, Hobbs had maintained a steady lead over Lake during the entire weeklong vote-counting process.

MSNBC reporter Vaughn Hillyard, who covered Lake for the past 18 months, was clear on why she lost.

Lake “predicated her campaign on trying to sell” Donald Trump’s conspiracy that he really won the 2020 election, Hillyard said, pointing out that Arizona has “rejected Trumpism” for the past three election cycles.

She had campaigned with major Trump allies such as Steve Bannon, and promoted Trumpist messages including white supremacy and attacking election officials. And then she—and a slew of other Trump-backed candidates—lost big on election night.

Lake “was the latest one to fall, essentially making it a clean sweep,” Hillyard said. “And now Donald Trump is going to go and try to run on the very message that all these people lost on.”

On October 11, Tulsi Gabbard proudly announced her departure from the Democratic Party. Calling on “fellow common sense independent-minded Democrats” to join her, Gabbard wasted no time on her new path, endorsing 13 Republicans before the midterm elections.

Many of the races were high-stakes. Among Gabbard’s endorsements were election denialists and conspiracy theorists.

Ten out of the 13 candidates she endorsed went on to lose their election.

Here is a full list of her failed endorsements:

House

• John Gibbs, Michigan’s 3rd district
• Tom Barrett, Michigan’s 7th district
• Joe Kent, Washington’s 3rd district

Senate

• Blake Masters, Arizona
• Adam Laxalt, Nevada
• Don Bolduc, New Hampshire

Governor

• Kari Lake, Arizona
• Darren Bailey, Illinois
• Tudor Dixon, Michigan
• Lee Zeldin, New York

Only three candidates she endorsed won the election: J.D. Vance for Ohio senator, Mike Lee for Utah senator, and Kristi Noem for South Dakota governor.

Gabbard’s shift to the right is not surprising. Beyond appearing at CPAC this year, she has found a home in right-wing media for some time. There, she has focused less on bringing conservatives closer to her and more on bringing herself closer to them—criticizing the impeachment inquiry into former President Donald Trump as “partisan,” complaining about “open borders,” and even filling in for Tucker Carlson on his show.

Though Gabbard’s endorsements have largely failed, her efforts are paying dividends for her own self-interest. On Monday, MAGA Republican Matt Gaetz floated Gabbard as a potential speaker of the House candidate. That same day, Gabbard officially signed a deal with Fox News to join the network as a paid contributor. And in the evening, Gabbard once again hosted Carlson’s program.

If Gabbard expected to coast into the GOP on a red wave, one bolstered by her “free-thinking” endorsements, she might be disappointed with the results. She’s not alone, of course. Donald Trump has an even longer list of failed endorsements. Now both seek to fail upward—Gabbard, as she becomes a mainstay of the right-wing media sphere, and Trump, who is expected to soon announce his third consecutive bid for the presidency.